Fuck me, Leicester sent Sampaoli's Sevilla packing? And nineteen days ago (count 'em!) those assholes couldn't pass the ball to a teammate twice in a row? Motherfuckers!

Love Pirlo, but in the realm of free-kick scorers, the greatest I've seen in my lifetime was Siniša Mihajlović (who was a centre-back, by the way). EVERY time his team (I saw him mainly at Lazio) was granted a free kick, even if it wasn't that close to the box, it was basically a penalty shot in disguise. Guy had a fuckin' shotgun in his leg.

Wow, I'd never even heard of him. I just googled him. Yeah he co-holds the Serie A record for free kicks with Pirlo. The 'controversies' section in his Wiki page is fucking massive, regarding his 'extremist and nationalistic political views and affiliations'. Seems like a right nasty piece of work. But yeah, a bit of a dead ball specialist too. So you really do learn something every day.

Bloody 'ell, mate — how young are you?! :)

I don't know where he currently stands on this matter, but (and this may bring out the wrath of Serbian SYG-ers; so be it) every prominent Serbian sportstar I can think of right now (Novak Djokovic, Jelena Janković, etc.) comes out as a ghoulish nationalistic fucker in interviews. With their country's recent history, you'd think they'd manifest some kind of remorse (even if they didn't pull any triggers themselves), but they're way more pissed off about Bill Clinton bombing the FRY in 1999...

oh ha ha i had never heard of the guy either but now i must look

now, we have CL games today don't we? which ones are we missing?

OK, this is getting worrisome. Mihajlović has coached Fiorentina and Milan, among other clubs (not exactly successfully, but that's another story). Didn't you people watch Luis Enrique play? Simeone? Rijkaard? Klinsmann? Frank De Boer? Mancini? Yow!

i was born yesterday

but what should i watch today? atleti/aspirin or monaco/pep city?

I wasn't gonna say that, but... :D


I say the latter.

good call. i haven't seen pep's pepisms in a while and i've been curious and it's about time i look & laugh

even as a bunda-liga fan

By the way, Luis Enrique played for both Real Madrid and Barcelona, five years in each club. He went directly from the goddamn merengues to Catalonia, Figo-in-reverse style. Here's the thing: in Real Madrid he was almost a joke. (Remember those really bad Guti games? Kinda like that). In Barça he was a demon. Nutty footballers, man...

I was thinking more about the fact that the aggregate score is pretty crazy (there's also a two-goal difference in the other game, but El Defensivo Aleti is leading and the match is in Madrid: doesn't sound very enticing). Now, hey, if what you want is Pep in deranged mode, more power to ya!

This reminds me, how about Guardiola himself — did you see him play? No? What the hell is going ON here?!

i never had global fútbol outside the world cup until... 2010

the us doesn't /didn't have great coverage. formerly it was only the spanish channels and mostly mexicoverage.

i've never/rarely had cable tv.

i started watching bundesliga on espn3 (online) after the 2010 world cup (we found it somehow). then it went to cable on goltv (bilingual) then fox finally took it a couple of years ago as goltv collapsed.

fox had the prem on their online service, lost it to nbc but kept bundesliga and champions.

and that's how i watch now. fucksucker2go.com

if guardiola ever played in a world cup, i don't remember him

Yeah, I saw all of those play. It turns out I'd also seen Mihajllovic play after I'd looked him up. I just didn't know his name.

You didn't miss anything. Guardiola only played in the megaboring 1994 World Cup. Spain were shit back then. In fact, they were ALWAYS shit until the 2008 Euro. Cruyff's Barcelona with Pep as his on-the-pitch lieutenant, now that was something...

holy shit 2-0 and monaco ahead on away goals

Told ya (to watch it)! :D Meanwhile, in Spain, NIL-NIL.

monaco brilliant so far. who are these players? holy shit. i didn't know this team at all.

===

oooh yesssss monaco! and pep got PWNED!

never underestimate the joys of schadenfreude

i'm a bad person

And that's how it ended.

Having won the Premiership with Mancini and then with Pellegrini (playing better under "The Engineer", though :)), but having fallen short of turning into Champions League superstars, Guardiola was supposed to make them some kind of... elegant European bulldozer or something. Now, good luck with winning ANYTHING this season.